Monthly Archives: July 2016

Everyone is out and about catching their Pokemon. In fact I was also with my kids catching them. Had fun at NAIDOC catching some. What started me off was “Don’t move mum, there’s a meowth on your foot”. I thought it was fun and good exercise with my kids, who are teenagers and upwards.

The down side came when I started to see reports of people trying to catch pokemon on railway tracks, in court houses, hospitals, cemetery’s and a Hell’s Angels Clubhouse. I walk past people at the ferry terminal, not waiting for a ferry but at a gym and sharing and not talking to other pokemon go players around them.

I had a very insightful moment while watching my son, a huge big lad, walking along to catch a pokemon. I saw white women around him, look at him strangely and hold their bags a bit tighter. I watched as business suited men, walked around him. Yep they thought this young black man was a threat to them.

I wonder how many other Aboriginal people have been affected by this? I wonder if Black people around the world are getting strange looks because of it? God forbid that a trigger happy American cop should shoot an innocent Black or Muslim man, who is just trying to catch a Zapdos.

My local park is full day and night with people trying to catch pokemon or those walking up and down to incubate an egg. Does this really need to be done at 3 AM? I have a work mate who has tried to change the settings on his phone so that he can get a rare pokemon that is in Ipswich. Guess what, that doesn’t work.

I read a post on Twitter this morning of white kids blaming the mess they are leaving behind in Darwin on Tall grass mob. I don’t know who would believe that when I see the local hot spots for pokemon around Brisbane with a lot of mess. But of course many would prefer to believe Aboriginal people made the mess than white kids. That is the sad state of affairs now. Black bashing and Muslim hating are back in vogue.

I hope the game goes the way of the dinosaurs soon, before I have another cause of concern with my kids.

I appreciate your views that you are scared. But I want to know what you are scared of? What do you think will happen to your child or to yourself? I am Just a Mum, an Aboriginal mum of 4 wonderful people. Daily I worry about my kids. I am scared that they will be attacked. I am scared that I will get a call from a hospital.

I have hugged my children and shed tears with them, when they have been spat on. I have kissed their hurt when they have been excluded because of the colour of their skin. I have worried myself sick every time a child comes home late. Why?

Because my children are very Aboriginal and very proud of it. They and their friends have had to face the hate that you two ladies spread. My daughter was told to go back where she comes from, when Pauline first came to our TV screens. The daughter was 8 at the time.

I worry when my son goes out with his friends, he is over 6ft what will the police do to him if they decide to pull him over? Again, this isn’t an irrational fear, I have faced it before when as a young teenager he and his sister, walking to Karate, were pulled up by the police and asked for identification, asked where they were going, asked to open their bags and had the bags emptied on the footpath. My daughter was taken in for questioning about a crime. Why? because she was Aboriginal and close by. They let her go when they found the person, who was another race altogher. But don’t let that worry you when you can grab an Aboriginal.

I have been at sporting events where my children are derided for being good, and heard the comments of Aboriginal money pays for everything. This is an insult to my children’s natural talent. This is an insult to me as the mum working hard to give my kids a chance to play sports and represent their Community, Town, Region and state.

Thanks to Pauline and her followers a lot of us waste our time educating the public. No we don’t get free education. No we don’t get free petrol. We definitely don’t get free cars. No free homes. But if you hear of one let me know, I would like a free home.

We struggle, we work, we live and we love. We teach our children to not hate those who hate us. We teach our kids manners and respect. Sonia Kruger, what are you teaching your child?

Try being an Aboriginal Australian, being overlooked and reviled in your own country. Try living with the past policies that kept us down. Try living with the affects of forced removals, stolen generation. The health problems my people face are in fact a cause of the past government policies.

If anyone knows what it is like to live with fear for your children it is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers. I will not forget the Muslim population. Muslims have lived in this country for many generations. Where would white Australia be without the Cameleers? These Afghan’s who traveled where white people feared to tread, these people who many of them lived and married Aboriginal people.

As I go through the social media, I am inundated with photographs from the US of the horrific shootings of Black people and the sniper attack against the police. I also know why the# Black Lives Matter became a big thing. What I don’t understand is the #Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the world. Yes I believe in showing support for my fellow man when treated badly. I want to know where is the #Red Lives Matter. More Aboriginal Americans have been killed by police or in police custody, but that has been ignored.

There will be a rally or two here in Australia for BLM. That is great, as long as it includes Aboriginal Lives. I see on social media people posting about Ms Bland, a year since she died in custody. At the same time myself and my fellow Indigenous people have been tweeting about a Royal Commission into the death of Ms Dhu at the hands of police a year ago. I see no difference. If Black Lives Matter it must include all shades of brown and red. If a rally is to be held in Australia, let it show the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We suffer from high death rates at the hands of authority; don’t overlook us because we don’t have Beyonce, Niki Minaj or Alicia Keys.

We need to have Australia recognise and genuinely look at the issues we face, instead of always telling us how lucky we are, and to face up to the true history or this nation, a history or rape, forced removals, Stolen Generations, massacres, denial of human rights and of course high incarceration rates.

Australia had a Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, from 1987 to 1991. The conclusion was too many Aboriginal people are in custody too often. In its report the commission made 339 recommendations. Aboriginal people still despair that most of these recommendations have not been carried out.

The Royal Commission examined the deaths of 99 people who had died in custody between 1 January 1980 and 31 May 1989. It looked into both the causes of the deaths and the prevention of future deaths and tried to answer the question: Why are so many Indigenous people in custody? Why were they treated that way?

The Commission’s findings were:

Aboriginal people do not die at a higher rate than non-Aboriginal people in custody.

The rate at which Aboriginal people are taken into custody is overwhelmingly different.

Investigating the deaths in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania the commission found that 13 of the 18 deaths in custody may have remained alive had custodial authorities not been negligent, uncaring or had followed procedures adequately. The other 5 deaths might also have been avoidable on the grounds that these people may not have needed to be in custody at all [19].

So with all of this, we should be the ones that BLM focuses on, not just being a tag along. I have asked on social media if we are included in the BLM rally and have been told by some that we are welcome to join in. Welcome to join in? But aren’t our Black Lives something to care about? I have also yet again copped a bit of hate from those who are telling me on social media that it’s not about us, but the crimes against American Black people. I have been informed on how hard they have it. Again I should just be silent and watch my people die.

An Act of Genocide: Canada’s Coerced Sterilization of First Nations Women – Intercontinental Cry – “The coercive sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada is genocide proper,” Dr. Karen Stote, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, asserted in a statement to Intercontinental Cry(IC). Her […]

Museums and Universities around the world hold Aboriginal human remains. I think this is appalling and should not have happened, but it did. So now is the time to return those remains to the rightful people.

In Australia, many museums are holding on to skeletal and hair of our ancestors. These were not donated to these institutions they were taken. Many people robbed graves to get these remains and the funerary objects with them. These people did not give permission for their graves to be robbed. Nor did they have the right to stop the missionary from cutting their hair to take samples.

Many have heard of Archibald Meston and his ilk, these men went out and sought remains and objects to sell to museums and private collections. Don’t think it was nice they way they treated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

They, being the museums, tell us that they are not the owners of these remains, but the keepers of them until they can be handed back to the families and communities to have a burial or to be housed in somewhere safe.

But these people and the hair samples and other objects are not really safe in these fine institutions, they are there and have been used by researchers. It is well-known that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have agreed to have their ancestors DNA tested by researchers, it is also well known that a lot of these people were misled by these Gods of science.

I know of a couple of Communities and families who have agreed to have themselves and their ancestors in a research study, but they were of the impression that it was about making sure the ancestors went home to the rightful people, and they are still waiting on word on how the testing went. Some find out through news stories about research. White people using Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for their own ends.

Many of these researchers use unethical techniques to gain the trust of people and to get permission but use the research for their own benefits. This practice has to stop. All the remains must go home and they must be safe from researchers.

The taking of these remains is another “Stolen Generation”. With families not knowing where their ancestors have gone. This is another breakdown in our links to our past. A lot of us grew up with stories of the white man coming in and stealing graves, shooting people, boiling down the bodies so they only had skeletons to carry away with them.

How in the name of science can you go against the beliefs of others? How can you just see bones and not see the person that once was? How can ethical science use these and assume permission is given because they are in a museum vault? Lets be honest, the ancestors didn’t ask to be part of some collection and they sure as hell wouldn’t want to be crushed, shattered and cut up for more scientific research.

We need more Bob Weatherall’s in the world, people who fight against these institutions to bring our family home again. Restore the family links and the Dreaming

I have had my fair share of haters out there. I have had trolls attack me on twitter on a couple of occasions, but I just let them go. I don’t block them I let them come to the conclusion that I am not interested. It is funny that they can keep up for days on end, even though you don’t interact.

Well Yesterday morning I re tweeted a tweet about Pauline Hanson and Islam in Australia, and I gave my opinion that the first terrorists in Australia, were the white settlers. This then sent a person in Rhodesia into some sort of spasm of attacking me and saying that Islam is the most hateful cult and that it is responsible for most of the deaths in the world. I at first thought I would answer this person and disagreed and said that Europeans have done their fair share of killings over the years.

The next thing I know I was getting tweets thrown left right and centre against me, some making some sense, many just attacking me. The profiles that I read of these people, I noticed a strange thing, they had all of them had attacks against women who were Canadian Aboriginal, Mexican, African-American, African, and European African. As the comments got worse and others joined in I just ignored it for a while. Then I pointed out that they had trolled women of colour, this set off the next attack against my colour and my heritage.

Now I completely left them alone, and noticed through the day and the night, that they kept sending comments including each other in them. But I was not part of it. Why did they keep going? I was perplexed as to why you would continue your hate when the person was not interacting. I did laugh at their comments on my race, they did not realise that Australia had Aboriginals, and kept referring to Africans living in Australia.

But the worst part about it was that they had the audacity when they realised I was ignoring them to inbox me. Now the private messages were filled with talk of my lack of education, the amazement in my tweeting skills considering I am black. sexually inappropriate talk from male and females. Why waste your time and mine? But it wasn’t just twitter that they attacked me, they then started the hate my blog. This hate towards my blog is to clog up my inbox with lots of “I wish you would die from your cancer”. “You deserve to die”. “Where would you be without white medicine”.

What is the point of all of this? Is it meant to scare me? is it meant to upset me? I just think they are very sad people who are cowards and hide behind silly names on the internet. Gutless wonders.

One of them threatened to hack my blog and “give the other black dogs a mouth full”. Is this really necessary? You know the hate that you sow today , will flourish into something that you really don’t want. It will come back on you tenfold.

I have tried to answer some questions from those who contact me. I often privately help but sometimes, names or emails are not left for me to do this. So I am posting these, please help out if you can, if you have any other information or input to add.

“Where do I go to for help? Who will listen to me? All the community and counselling services only offer a few free visits then you have to go to someone else. I need to talk all the time about my problems. I have a oesophageal cancer and I am worried about everything and how I am going to live, where am I going to live while I have treatment how will I pay the bills. I have so many worries but no one to tell them too. I would like to have a case worker, social worker somebody of my own culture who can help me.”

I think you need to talk to your GP about being on a care co-ordination package or a chronic disease, something that will give you some counselling as part of the package. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Medical services have mental health workers who it would be good to talk to, that person can then help you with any anxiety you might have over your diagnosis and help you towards services that will help. Life line and other community organisations are there to help. They and many smaller community based organisations can help with food, budgeting, and even counselling. Your hospital will have social workers who should be able to help you.

“My mother had breast cancer, my sister and I have survived it I have heard that there is a test my nieces can do to find out the chances of them having it. What is it and how to get it?”

“Hi I am looking for a playgroup around Sydney that I can take my son to play. He has Leukaemia, and I want him to have as normal a life as possible. I want him to know that other Koori kids are out there with special needs like him.”